


Black and Gray

by RavenTempestShadowhunter



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, F/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Self Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-02-11 02:12:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2049453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenTempestShadowhunter/pseuds/RavenTempestShadowhunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico has a dark past. Thalia is suicidal. Nico has lived in Tianshi Psychiatric Hospital for a year and a half. Thalia has just been admitted. They both think they're alone. Maybe they are. But maybe they're not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nico

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the Prince of Egypt, Frozen, or the Brotherband Chronicles by John Flanagan. I do own Tianshi Psychiatric Hospital, Erin, Richard, Rose, and Martha.
> 
> Originally posted on fanfiction.net under the same title and username.

The walls are white. Very white. Too white. They are what most people would call smooth, but he doesn't know why. When he runs his fingers over them he feels the little bumps that come from plaster, so he thinks they should be called rough. Or bumpy. But not smooth. Smooth means no bumps.

The orderlies say that the walls are white because they deflect heat, and if the walls were darker the way he wants them to be then the rooms would be too hot.

He thinks maybe red would be okay. Or blue. He likes blue. He thinks blue would be better than white. And blue makes people more intelligent, or stimulates their brains, or something. He read that in a book. He likes to read.

Putting someone in a white room is a kind of torture. He read that in a book, too. The soldiers were captured and put in a white room. They were alone, and there wasn't anything in the room with them. It drove them crazy. When they got home, they had nightmares.

It seems sort of backwards to him. Why would white give them nightmares? He gets nightmares from black. Not black clothes, or black hair, or black eyes (all of which he has, and likes), but _black_ black. Complete black. Complete darkness. It scares him.

But the orderlies don't understand him. They won't let him change the walls.

Sometimes he wonders if they like him. They seem so nice. But everyone seems nice at first. And not everyone can be nice, not really.

The white door in the white wall opens to reveal a white hallway. An orderly pokes her head through the opening. Her face is smiling.

Where is the rest of her body? It's outside the door, of course. It's standing outside the door while her head is inside. What if her body didn't want to stay there? What if it walked away, and left her head stranded? He watches her body walk away on the other side of the door. Her head stays there, floating in mid-air, her blond hair hanging limply without shoulders to fall on. Her body disappears around the corner.

“Nico.” He blinks and he's back on his bed, staring at the orderly. He wonders if she knows that her body is walking away. “Your father's here to see you.”

From behind the orderly a man appears. He wonders why he didn't see the man in the hallway when he was watching the orderly's body walking away.

The man smiles and begins walking towards the bed.

His fingers turn white as he clenches them around the sheets. _This is my father_ , he says to himself, _he won't hurt me_. He repeats it in his head, running through the things he remembers about the man, until the man has reached the bed and has sat down. His fingers slowly come away from the sheets.

“I brought you something,” his father says, and pulls a candy bar out of his jacket pocket.

He smiles. It's a Three Musketeers, his favorite. “Thank you,” he says.

His father doesn't reply.

He tears open the wrapper, extracts the chocolate bar, and stares at it. It feels like a long time since he's eaten, even though he knows he did this morning at breakfast. It was eggs. He doesn't really like eggs. But he ate them anyway. He's trying hard to cooperate.

“Nico?”

They give him breakfast in his room, because he wasn't able to leave. There were too many people in the halls. Sometimes he can do that. It doesn't always scare him.

“Nico?”

But this morning he saw the people in the hallway, and he couldn't breath. The orderlies came by and tried to calm him down, but nothing worked. Finally they let him eat his eggs in his room. When it was time for Group, he had no problem.

“Bambino?”

A hand lands on his knee, and he flinches. He looks up from the chocolate bar to see his father's hand hovering just above his leg. “Sorry,” his father says, and retracts his hand.

“It's okay,” Nico says, and takes a small bite of his chocolate. It tastes as good as it always has before, and he smiles again and takes another bite.

His father smiles, too. “How was it yesterday?” He doesn't give Nico time to answer – he never does, and Nico doesn't know why. “I'm sorry I wasn't there. The meeting ran later than I thought it would. But Erin said you did well. That's why I brought the chocolate.”

People don't like to be interrupted. The don't like to stop talking. And they don't like to be given opinions, only to give their own. His father never stops to let Nico answer. No one else does, either. They just keep talking and talking and talking, until finally they get tired and walk away. Sometimes they stay and look at him with big round eyes, as though they're waiting for him to answer. But when he does, they still stare at him with those big round eyes, as though he hasn't said anything at all. Sometimes he wonders why he bothers to answer.

“ _Prince of Egypt_ , wasn't it?” his father continues. It was actually _Frozen_ , and Nico really enjoyed it, but he doesn't interrupt, never interrupts. “You used to love that movie.” His father chuckles. “I couldn't get you to stop watching it sometimes. You knew every word to all the songs. You used to sing them to me.”

 _There can be miracles, when you believe. Though hope is frail it's hard to kill. Who knows what miracles you can achieve when you believe? Somehow you will. You will when you believe_.

He still knows them. They play in his head sometimes when it's too quiet. Sometimes he likes the quiet better.

_By the might of Horus you will kneel before us, kneel to out splendorous power!_

That's his favorite. He loves the priests, loves watching them spin and dance and laugh. Their laughs are cruel. They're laughing at Moses, even though he's supposed to be good. He doesn't like Moses. He likes the priests.

_Deliver us; hear our prayer, deliver us from despair, these years of slavery grow too cruel to stand._

No, no, he doesn't like that one. That one hurts. It should stop. He wants it to stop.

_I send the swarm, I send the horde, thus saith the Lord!_

No, stop, stop, please stop.

_I sent the thunder from the sky, I send the fire raining down._

He clamps his hands over his ears. Stop, please, _please_.

 _This was my home. All this pain and devastation, how it tortures me inside_.

Please, Papa, make it stop, make it all stop.

_I send my scourge, I send me sword, thus saith the Lord!_

The room is full of orderlies now, and his father is standing beside the bed with a poorly disguised terrified look on his face, and Nico is watching himself sitting on the bed with the orderlies gathering around him. He can hear their voices, like soft birds in his ears, and he wonders idly who's screaming.

* * *

The lights are too bright. They're shining right in his eyes, blinding him. He looks down to avoid them, but they reflect off of the shining surface of the table and blind him all over again. He squeezes his eyes shut. Spots dance behind his eyelids, and he squeezes them harder. Then cruel laughter starts to fill his ears.

He opens his eyes, finding that the lights are not as bright as they were and wondering where the brightness has gone. He looks up at the ceiling. Perhaps it floated away. He watches as the brightness rolls up into little balls and sails through the air to an open window.

The cruel laughter fades back into his ears, and he looks across the table at the boy sitting there. The boy's hair is cut close to his head, almost shaved off, but it is blonde enough that the only way Nico knows it's there is because of the way it shines in the light. His blue eyes are hard, and sunken in a pudgy face. His cheeks are too red, as though he's been drinking (Nico only knows that alcohol turns people red because he read it in a book, and it confuses him – he thinks that if carrots turn people orange, then wine should turn people purple (because even red wine isn't really red) and beer should turn people amber).

“Somethin' on the ceiling?” the boy demands, his lips twisted into a smirk.

“Tiles,” Nico responds in a dry tone, but the boy laughs before he's finished the word.

“What's wrong, angel boy, devil got your tongue?”

Nico almost frowns, but doesn't, because he doesn't want to give the boy – Richard, he thinks – that satisfaction.

Richard laughs again, and Nico's senses begin to flare. His heart is pounding louder in his chest, and his breath grows heavier. He takes a few deep breaths to calm himself down. Around the room are security guards. They won't let Richard hurt him. Chiron says he needs to start trusting people more. These are good people to trust.

Nico looks down at his tray, piled high with green mush and orange mush (peas and carrots, each in their own separate section of the try) and a bowl of creamy clam chowder. He can see a few potato chunks floating in the milky white soup, and picks up his plastic spoon to push them around a bit.

“Hey!” Richard says, loudly enough to attract the attention of the other people at their table. “Angel boy!”

Nico doesn't look up, but his heart begins beating faster. He isn't fond of raised voices.

“Angel boy, I'm talking to you!”

Nico still doesn't look up.

One of the boys sitting next to him shoves the side of his head, not hard enough to knock him off the seat but hard enough for it to frighten him. They mean it, he can tell.

He stands up, turns around, and begins walking out of the cafeteria, leaving his tray there for someone else to deal with. Chiron says that when things get too hard he can just walk away, and no one will criticize him for it.

Chiron is wrong, Nico knows. People will torment him for it later. They latch on to anything they can to make fun of, and suck it dry. Like leeches. Like high school students.

Nico knows this from a book. He's never been to high school.

He leans back against a wall and takes deep breaths until he feels like his lungs are working again. He imagines tiny people in his lungs pumping huge bellows to make him breath. He wills them to work harder. Richard's words and raised voice are oxygen on the iron of the bellows, and they've rusted. They aren't working well anymore. The tiny people are rushing to oil them, but his head is spinning from lack of oxygen and he feels everything more acutely than ever. He hates these times, when he can feel the water in the air and the sweat beading on his brow and the slight wind that comes from the barely open window down the hall.

Something warm lands on his shoulder, and he wonders why he didn't know it was there before. He blinks a few times and looks up from the floor. An orderly is standing there, smiling. Her hair is somewhere between red and brown, and it's been curled and put into a ponytail. Her skin is a perfect color, not too pale and not too tan. Her makeup is flawless. But her eyes are a muddy brown, and it ruins the effect.

“You alright, sweetheart?” she asks, and Nico immediately dislikes her. He doesn't like it when people call him sweetheart. A sweetheart is a type of candy. He's not a candy.

The little people in his lungs have begun to work their bellows again, so he takes a deep breath (makes them work harder – they deserve it for quitting on him like that) and straightens up.

“What's your name?” the orderly asks.

“Nico,” he answers, but she keeps looking at him as if he hasn't said anything. Her muddy brown eyes are wide, and her teeth are showing.

“Can you tell me your name?” she asks again.

“Nico.” Why isn't she listening? She should be listening. He's already told her this once, she should have heard, why can't she hear? Should he say it louder? He tries it.

She takes his hand and begins pulling him away from the cafeteria. Her hand is warm and soft. He doesn't like it. In a moment his hand is going to start sweating, and her soft hand will get sticky. Then she'll drop his hand and her pretty face will get twisted and the skin around her muddy eyes will crinkle up, and she'll run away like he's a disease. It's happened before.

He follows her down the hall to the Desk. The Desk is where people go when they're lost, or when they need something. He isn't lost, and he doesn't need anything, except for this lady to let go of him. And he thinks he can handle that alone.

But he likes Rose, the lady who works most nights, so he doesn't fight the orderly with the muddy eyes.

When Rose sees them, she smiles, but her eyes don't. She looks like his father does sometimes, or how he did, before Nico had to come here. He father never looks like that anymore, and Nico is glad. “Hi,” she say, cheery as ever.

The muddy eyed orderly answers, “Hi, Rose. I was wondering if you could tell me where this young man's room is.” She looks up at him, still smiling. “He was outside the cafeteria, looked like he could use some space.”

 _Looked like he was having a freak out_ , he thinks, but he doesn't say anything. He wishes people wouldn't do that. It's so much easier to understand when people say what they mean.

Rose flicked her eyes from the orderly to Nico. “Nico, this is Martha. She's working your floor.”

“What happened – ?”

“Seth had to take a vacation.”

Nico frowns. He likes Seth. He doesn't like this new woman, this _Martha_ , with her too wide smile and her muddy eyes. Seth has nice greenish-brown eyes, and his smile is a little crooked, but in a good way. Not like the Stoll brothers. Their smiles are crooked, too, but their smiles hint at mischief and trickery. Nico doesn't like mischief, not after he found a snake in his bed after dinner the night he tipped one of the brothers' bowl of soup into the other brothers' lap. They didn't find it as funny as he did.

Rose looks back at Martha and says, “Can you take Nico back to his room? He's 242. He might just need to lie down for a while.”

Martha smiles at Nico, and he doesn't smile back. He feels like crossing his arms, but he isn't five and he won't act like he is, no matter how annoyed this new orderly is making him. “How does that sound? Nico, right?” She looks back and Rose.

“Like I told you twice already,” Nico says in a sullen tone.

Rose nods. “Nico.”

Martha looks back at Nico, and takes his hand again. Her hand is still soft, but now it feels too fleshy in Nico's. He wiggles it in discomfort, but she doesn't let go. “Come on,” she says in a soft voice, as if she's talking to a child.

Nico allows himself to be led away.

* * *

The walls are still white, but now they're dark. Where the moonlight slips through the curtains, they're glowing. The marks in the plaster are accented by shadows. Nico can see every dip, every imperfection. He thinks it's ironically symbolic, that the glow that makes the white beautiful also highlights the imperfections.

The lights in the hallways have been turned off, save for the nightlights they line the hall with, but he can still hear orderlies pacing back and forth. One of the women who take the night shift on his floor (he never sees her during the day and so has never learned her name) has very loud shoes. They clack every time they hit the floor. Nico doesn't know how anyone sleeps with her heels walking past their room. Then again, it's nearly half past midnight, and most of the patients are asleep already.

Nico doesn't like the dark. It scares him. Sometimes, when it's quiet enough, he can't remember where he is – only where he was, all those years ago. It terrifies him. He's alone and small and begging for his father, but no one can hear him and he doesn't know why.

But it isn't that quiet now, and he's grateful for it. He's grateful for the orderly's clacking heels, no matter how loud they are, because they remind him where he is.

He turns over and stares at the ceiling. The moonlight doesn't reach the ceiling. It streams from the window to the wall, but the ceiling stays dark. It could go up for miles, and no one would ever know. It could grow every night, reach up to the stars, but it would stay dark all the same.

The orderly's heels approach, and pass.

Nico rolls over to face away from the door. Across the room is a small desk. It’s covered in books right now, although his father insists that he’ll be getting a real bookshelf for his next birthday. They haven’t been able to afford it yet.

Nico glances over his shoulder, but although the door is open there is no one in the hallway, only the dim glow of the nightlights. He throws back the covers and makes his way to the desk on silent feet, picks up the book on the top of the pile in the middle, and goes back to the bed. He curls up under the covers next to the nightlight they’ve put in his room and opens the book to a random page. He doesn’t care what he’s reading, just so long as it’s something. He needs to fight away the memories that the dark brings.

_The following morning, the Herons were roused from their blankets by Gort, who was banging a hardwood stick on an old barrel hoop, just inside the entrance of the tent._

He smiles. He loves this story. _The Outcasts_ , the first book in the Brotherband Chronicles. Not quite as good as the Ranger’s Apprentice series, but still up there. Maybe if he read the third book, he’d like it more.

The orderly with the clacking heels comes back. He hides the book under his covers until she’s passed. Then he pulls it out again.

But he can’t concentrate on the book. As much as he loves the story, he can’t focus on it. It doesn’t feel real to him this time. The terrors are still creeping up on him. He can feel them on his skin, feel the shadows crawling up his neck. His nightlight does little to fight them off. It’s a guard wall made of straw, and it’s burning up, letting the terrors in.

He draws the covers up over his head and whimpers softly. His breathing grows faster and shorter. He squeezes his eyes shut and sobs, but the orderlies can’t hear him. No one can hear him. Only two people have ever been able to hear him – one is at home, and one is not, not anymore.

 _Bianca, please_.

 


	2. Thalia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own World of Warcraft, Supernatural or Bones. Scarlett, Seth, Andrew, Mrs. Ross and Aaron are all original characters. Tianshi Psychiatric Hospital and Grounds for Divorce are original places.

The building rises into the gray morning sky, dark against the clouds. The bricks have yet to be touched by the sun, so they're dark, nearly black but not quite. The clouds are silvery where the sun should be, but it hasn't broken through yet, and the weather lady on the television earlier predicted that it won't all day. The grass is dark and wet – it rained last night. The people making their ways into the building are half awake an not motivated in the slightest, as is evident from their hunched positions and the way their feet are dragging on the ground.

The entire scene looks like the Hell it's always looked like, ever since she first showed up two and a half years ago, and she wonders why she bothered to show up today.

“God, I hate this place,” says a voice from her left, and she looks over to see a head of brown hair, presumably connected to Scarlett. Unfortunately, Scarlett is exceedingly short, so it's sometimes difficult to tell.

She laughs and runs a bangled hand through her hair, trying to avoid getting caught on her rings. “Last day of the week, remember?”

Scarlett tilts her head back and looks up at the gloomy sky. “I know. Hey, you're going to the party tonight, right?”

“God, which one? There are like three.”

They've made it to the lockers, away from the chill of autumn air. She never uses her locker, though, so she stands by and waits while Scarlett fusses with her books, and then with her hair a bit. “Long weekend,” Scarlett sighs. “Everyone likes to party on a long weekend.”

“Are you complaining?”

Scarlett grins. “Am I ever?”

“You complain about a lot of things.”

The sound of Scarlett's hand coming down on her arm is so loud that it attracts the attention of the few people standing around them. “I don't complain! God, you make me sound like a whiny bitch!”

“You said it, not me.”

Scarlett shoves her into the lockers, not hard, but hard enough to make the bruises on her arm start to ache, and laughs. She doesn't hear Scarlett begin to talk, though; she's too busy clenching her fist so she won't rub her arm, and thinking of last night. Seth's hands gripping her arms too tightly, turning them black and blue.

She can't wait for school to be over today. More importantly, she can't wait for the party. Whichever one they choose to go to.

“Thalia!”

She looks up to see Scarlett standing a few feet away from where she was a moment ago, holding books in the crook of her arm and staring at Thalia like she's some kind of idiot. “You coming?”

Thalia chuckles at herself and slings her bag over her right shoulder before shoving through the thin crowd to reach her best friend. “Sorry,” she says, grinning and hoping that Scarlett buys it. She doesn't have the strength to put anymore effort into faking it. It's Friday.

Luckily, Scarlett doesn't notice ( _unluckily_ , half her mind is screaming at her, _unluckily, someone needs to notice_ – she beats that part down with a baseball bat and covers it with dirt).

“What if we went to one, and then left at like midnight and went to another one?” Scarlett suggests. “We could hit at least two.”

She's about to ask what the hell Scarlett's talking about when she remembers their party dilemma “Midnight? We won't get anything done before midnight.”

“Yeah, but at least we won't insult anyone. Those things can come back to bite you in the ass.”

Thalia rolls her eyes. “We won't hurt anyone's feelings. How about,” she says as they sit at their desks, “we choose one, and then promise to go to the others next time they're hosting?”

“Or we could just have our own. Your place? My parents are having company over.”

She's glad that she put on makeup this morning, or Scarlett would see how pale her face is. “Can't, Mom's in town.”

“I thought you said she wouldn't be here!”

“She wasn't supposed to be. Her trip got canceled.”

Scarlett frowns and sighs, but doesn't question.

Thalia breathes a sigh of relief. Her mother _is_ out of town tonight, she's gone on another “vacation” with Seth, which is probably code for something that Thalia really doesn't want to think about, seeing as how she'd left her brain bleach at home. But she can't have people coming over on short notice like this. It's too risky.

Scarlett heaves a long-suffering sigh and says, “I guess we'll just have to choose.”

“Choices?”

“Luke, Rachel and some kid from my English class.” She makes a face. “Maybe not him. He's weird.”

Thalia snorts. “Probably a bunch of geeks playing World of Warcraft.”

“My God, Thalia, I'm ashamed that you even know what that is.”

 _And I'm impressed that you know what_ ashamed _means_ , she thinks, but doesn't say. She knows she's a bitch sometimes

“My brother likes it.”

Scarlett groans. “He was growing up to be so hot, too! Why'd he have to go and be a geek?”

She doesn't answer. She wants to tell Scarlett to fuck off and fuck herself while she's at it – no one gets to badmouth her brother except her – but she isn't prepared to pick that fight. Instead she shrugs and pulls out her binder, then the homework sheet that she didn't do.

“Luke's parties have cuter guys, but Rachel's have better drinks,” Scarlett continues. She examines her nails as she speaks.

“Yeah, but the guys who go to Rachel's are cute and rich,” Thalia points out. Honestly, she couldn't care less about the guys (well, maybe a little less than honestly – she's a teenage girl, and considering her mother's track record, it's a miracle that she doesn't climb every guy she sees like a tree). She's really more interested in the alcohol. Her mother's liquor cabinet has been run dry, and she's had a long week. And Jason's at a friend's house tonight.

She almost feels guilty, being glad that Jason's gone so that she can party. Almost

Scarlett hums and taps a badly manicured fingernail on the desk. “I guess you're right.” She puts her chin in her palm and sighs, as though choosing a party to go to is the most difficult thing she's had to do all week (which, Thalia supposes, might very well be true). “But Andrew's gonna be at Luke's.” She's almost pouting, almost whining.

Thalia rolls her eyes. Scarlett has been crushing on Andrew since they were in third grade and he was in fourth. Thalia's pretty sure that Andrew doesn't even know Scarlett's name, but if she goes to Luke's party in the tiny black skirt and tight fitting maroon shirt that she loves so much, then it won't matter – no one can keep their eyes off of Scarlett when she wants to be noticed.

“Whatever you want,” Thalia says, shrugging like it doesn't matter to her (and it doesn't).

Scarlett is about to respond when the door slams shut behind Mrs. Ross, effectively shutting up every student in the room. Mrs. Ross is four feet, ten inches of mean. Thalia might even say evil if she was having a bad day. Stick thin and bony, with steel gray hair and sharp green eyes, Mrs. Ross looks like something out of _Supernatural_ , like she's going to turn into some unnatural creature and attack all of her students. And that’s on a good day.

Every morning when Mrs. Ross walks into their class, she makes sure to glare over at where Thalia and Scarlett sit, and Thalia and Scarlett give her their most charming smiles. Mrs. Ross has it out for them, and they aren't sure why, but they intend to piss her off as much as possible, just for the hell of it.

And they're half way through the year anyway. A few more months, and the only way they'll see her is in passing in the halls (or possibly on wanted posters when she finally snaps and murders a student – there are betting pools going regarding when that will happen and who it will be).

They suffer through math with minimal pain, minimal glares on the part of Mrs. Ross, and minimal work completed. By the time the period was over, Thalia was vibrating in her seat, waiting for the bell to ring so she could get away from the class and not have to think about it for the weekend.

Scarlett chats Thalia's ear off as they make their way down the hallway, but Thalia tunes her out. She's too busy trying to pretend that she's not in the middle of a crowd. The hallways are filled with people, more people than she thinks should exist in one school district. One of them jostles Scarlett, and she interrupts her ramble to glare at him. Thalia doesn't look to see if he responded, by glaring back or by cowering.

Scarlett’s next class is on the way to Thalia’s, which means that Thalia walks about three-quarters of a hallway alone. Normally that’s fine. Normally Thalia doesn’t feel like her ribcage is about to collapse in on her lungs.

Finally she makes it to the bathroom and locks herself in a stall. It's too small, and for some reason it smells like fish, which is gross, but she ignores both because she's too busy hyperventilating. She doesn't know why this happens. Sometimes it just does. Sometimes it just feels like everyone around her is trying to crowd her into a little corner and press her so hard that she flattens and becomes part of the wall.

She digs her nails into her palms to distract herself from her breathing. If she doesn't think about her breathing, then it will go back to normal and everything will be okay. But trying not to think about it just makes her think about it more.

She threads her hands into her dark hair, not bothering to worry that her rings and bracelets will get caught. She's probably going to be late to her next class, but she's having trouble caring. She usually has trouble caring about being late to class.

The door swings open and she hears a group of fellows class-skippers come in. They're talking and laughing and she hears a few of them mention different boys' names, but she can only put one or two of the names to faces. She doesn't know why she's bothering to listen to these girls. They aren't particularly interesting, but somehow they calm her down. They're normal, stupid girls talking about normal, stupid things. She's like them, no matter how much she'd like to pretend she's not – not as shallow, not as idiotic, not as slutty, but he talks about clothes and makeup and boys with her friends, too.

Except right now she doesn't want to pretend. She wants to be like them. Because they aren't hiding in a bathroom stall trying to remember how to breathe right now. And she's not naïve enough to think that they don't have their own issues, and maybe they even have her issues, but they seem to be able to deal with their issues in a way that she doesn't think she can. They've got a key that she doesn't have and she wants it, _needs_ it, so badly that it hurts.

No one's asking them about their problems, though, just like no one's asking about hers, so maybe she has the key and doesn't even know it. Or maybe everyone cares as little for her as she does for the girls standing in front of the sink.

She blinks and realizes that the girls are no longer standing in front of the sink and have left the bathroom. It's silent again, even in the hallway, which means that classes have started and she's going to be late again.

Her breathing has gone back to normal, but she doesn't want to deal with another class, so she opens the stall door, washes her hands (because ick, public bathroom, and it doesn't matter if you used the toilet or not, the handles of the stalls alone are disgusting), and takes out her phone.

 _Coffee?_ she types.

* * *

“I hope you've got a good reason for this,” Scarlett says as she slides into the front passenger seat of Thalia's black Volvo.

“I need a reason for coffee?”

“For getting me out of a class I'm failing.”

Thalia shrugs and turns on the car. “You came, didn't you?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t?”

Thalia doesn’t answer, just pulls out of the parking lot of the high school and begins heading toward their favorite coffee shop.

Thalia began going to Grounds for Divorce for the name (the cafe had been the result of a man with marital problems and a midlife crisis) and stayed for the mocha. She once asked one of the workers for their secret, and learned that they added a small spoonful of grated chocolate to their mochas and their hot chocolate to make it that much better. It worked. It’s almost the only coffee she’ll drink now, the exception being the awful, strong-enough-to-make-a-trucker-cry coffee that her mother’s coffee pot automatically brews every morning, and that’s only on the mornings when she’s running late and doesn’t have time to find anything else to get her through her morning classes.

“So have we decided on a party yet?” Scarlett asks as the bell above the door of the coffee shop sounds.

Thalia waits until after they’ve got their drinks and pastries and are sitting at a table before she answers. “I told you, it’s up to you.”

Scarlett gives a dramatic groan and tips her head back against the seat, then straightens up and whines, “But what if the one I choose is terrible? Then it’s all my fault.”

“And if the one you choose is amazing, then you get all the credit.”

Scarlett snorts. “Our options are Rachel, Luke and some geek fest. None of them are going to be amazing.”

“Well as long as we _don’t_ go to the geek fest, we probably won’t remember the party anyway.”

“True.”

Thalia takes a sip of her (absolutely amazing) mocha. “I vote Rachel’s.”

Scarlett pouts.

“I know, Andrew.”

“Thalia, he’s _so cute_.”

Thalia snorts into her mocha. “You’ve mentioned.”

“Hey, just because you don’t have a guy...”

“I don’t care which party we go to! Just make up your damn mind!”

“But it's so hard!”

“Jesus Christ, Scar, it's a party, not a life choice.”

Scarlett groans and puts her head down on the table. “I hate you,” she mumbles into her crossed arms.

Thalia laughs. “I know.”

After a moment, Scarlett picks up her head and says, “Okay. So Luke's will have college boys, but Rachel's will have rich boys.”

“And better drinks.”

“That. But _Luke's_ will have Andrew.”

“Glad you've been paying attention.”

Thalia's head is starting to hurt, and she almost wishes she could just go home and curl up in her bed with a bag of tootsie pops (ice cream be damned) and the entire new season of Bones instead of having to go to a party and deal with people. Then she remembers the sad state of their liquor cabinet and sighs.

“Let's go to Luke's.”

Scarlett's face brightens, but she tries to hide it. “Are you sure? You said you wanted to go to Rachel's.”

Thalia fights back the urge to roll her eyes. “Yeah, whatever. It doesn't really matter.”

“Okay! Hey, d'you think you can drop me at my house? Unless you have something that will fit me.”

Thalia stands and throws her empty cup away after draining every last possible drop. “Sure.”

* * *

There isn't much Thalia likes about parties, to be honest. There are too many people, and it's too hot, and the combination makes her feel like she's suffocating. The air is filled with an awful stench of beer and sweat that's sticking in her nose like tar and making its way into the back of her throat so that she can feel it, greasy like cheap pizza. The people around her don't seem to notice, or don't care. Maybe it's just in her head.

She looks down at her own red cup with distain. She’s never liked beer anyway, but this is especially bad. For as much as he likes partying, Luke’s never been one to spend a lot of money. He doesn’t care about the taste of his drinks, and she’s pretty sure the food that isn’t potato chips came from a freezer and was heated in a microwave. Honestly, she’s not sure he can even taste how bad it all is anymore. His taste buds have been destroyed over the years.

In her head, she shrugs, and she takes another swallow of her beer. She didn’t come here for the quality refreshments.

No, apparently she came here to watch her best friend flirt with a guy who will never ever give her the time of day. He might give it to her chest, which is practically falling out of her shirt and is the only thing he seems to be giving any attention to, but Thalia thinks that’s about the only attention Scarlett’s going to get from him. And that’s while he’s wasted, which is pretty clear from the way he’s swaying. She doesn’t think he’d bother with any part of her if he was sober.

Then again, that doesn’t happen often.

Thalia sighs and shoves people out of her way so she can get to the snack table. She tosses her red solo cup in the bin beside the table, beer and all. Then she takes another cup and fills it with the too-red punch from the big bowl in the center of the table. She knows it's spiked, although she's not sure what with, and she also knows she probably shouldn't drink it _because_ she doesn't know what with, but she's not in the mood for logic or reason or sense tonight. She has zero responsibilities tonight, and she doesn't intend to remember most of this party. She takes a handful of potato chips – she doesn't know what kind they are, but they aren't any sort of funny color so she's not too worried – and goes back to her corner, where she sinks down to the floor and shoves some chips into her mouth.

When she's chewed and managed to swallow her mouthful of chips, she sips the punch. Then she grimaces. It's disgusting. It tastes like Hawaiian Punch, which she hates anyway, but someone's added something frozen, like sherbet or sorbet, the cheap kind. She's sure it would be more or less okay by itself, but anything mixed with Hawaiian punch is awful, and there are chunks of frozen something floating in the punch, which doesn't help at all. To top it all off, the punch was obviously spiked with something that had flavor, which means the flavor has mixed with the punch and the frozen dessert and created a drink that is truly disgusting.

But she takes another sip, because whoever spiked the punch wasn't shy about it, and she can already feel the effects.

Half an hour later she's finished the cup and the lights are more than a little too bright. The music has faded into a steady pulse in the back of her mind. She's contemplating getting another cup of punch, but she isn't sure she wants to fight her way through the crowd, and she's not sure she wants to try standing in the first place.

Her head is tilted back and her eyes are closed when someone calls her name over the music. She opens her eyes and squints up at them, trying to block the lights from her vision.

“Had enough?” a boy she vaguely recognizes from last year says, grinning at her.

She tries for a snort, but ends up with a puff of air and a drunken grin. “No such thing,” she says, over pronouncing in a practiced effort not to slur her words.

“Want more? I'll grab it for you.”

If she was more sober, she would remember never to take anything that a stranger offers. But she isn't, and she doesn't care much anyway. She gives him a clumsy nod.

“Anything?”

She shrugs.

Five minutes later the boy – Aaron, she thinks – has handed her another cup of the punch and is sitting next to her with his own cup chattering on about something she really couldn't care less about. She's downing her cup so that he won't expect her to answer, but he probably wouldn't anyway. People generally don't when they're wasted.

Her phone rings as he's in the middle of an explanation of something he and his brother had done to their teacher. It takes Thalia three tries to stand up, and by the time she's made it across the room and into a spare bedroom – one without couples or, God forbid, more than two people – the call has gone to voice mail. She sits down on the bed and pulls out her phone. It takes her a moment to find her missed calls, and another moment to be able to see the screen. Finally she makes out the name _Jason_ and pressed redial.

“Hi, Thalia,” Jason says on the other line when he picks up. He doesn't sound happy.

“Hey, kid,” she says, trying to sound normal and not sure she's pulled it off.

“D'you mind coming to pick me up?”

“Though' you were at Leo's.” She puts a hand to her forehead and squeezes her eyes shut at her accidental slur.

“Yeah,” Jason's starting to sound more and more miserable. “I got sick. Leo's mom says it might be the flu, it's been going around school.”

Thalia sighs. Her head is spinning and she's pretty sure she won't remember any of this tomorrow morning, which admittedly is what she wanted. But now this happens, and she knows she's well above the legal limit, not to mention being a minor. She wouldn't trust herself to drive alone right now, she's not letting Jason get in the car with her when she's like this.

“I don't think I can, Jay. I'm…I'm busy with Scar, we're…studying.”

Jason groans. “Please, Thalia, if you don't I have to stay here and then Leo might get it.”

She wants to cry. That's her little brother, always putting everyone else in front of himself. If she drove him home he'd probably lock himself in his room so that she wouldn't get it either.

“Esperanza won' min' taki'care offf you.” She needs to get off the phone now, the alcohol's getting to her even more than it had been before.

“Are you serious? You're going to ask Esperanza to take care of a puking kid that isn't hers?”

Thalia hears Esperanza say that she doesn't mind in the background, and she pulls it together for a few more sentences. “See? She doesn't mind. I'll see you tomorrow.” When Jason starts to complain, she cuts him off. “My car's broken anyways, it won't be fixed 'til tomorrow morning. Bye.” She hangs up before he can reply.

Suddenly she doesn't want to go back to the party. She feels terrible for leaving her little brother like that. But she can't very well let him know that she's been drinking. He can't be wrapped up in anything like that, she won't let it happen. It's her job to protect him.

She's doing a pretty shitty job right now, isn't she?

Thalia stumbles to her feet and leaves the room. Down the hall is a bathroom, and anyone who knows Luke knows that he keeps his own secret stash there, for use by friends only. She's known him for long enough to be able to take a few things, and that's all she needs. Anyway, he won't miss them.

She rifles through the medicine cabinet and has to take a while to examine each prescription bottle so her eyes will adjust before she finds what she's looking for. She opens it and pours three pills into her hand. Sleeping pills.

She swallows the pills with water, goes back to the room, and collapses on the bed. It takes just a few minutes for the pills to begin working, and then she's out like a light.

* * *

When Thalia cracks her eyes open, she's in the same position as she was when they closed. The house is quiet. Her head is pounding and she feels a bit nauseous. On her left cheek, the one that was pressed against the bed, is a bit of dried drool or vomit. She wipes at it furiously as she sits up, then has to put her hand back on the bed to make sure she doesn't fall over. She leans over the side of the bed and vomits the contents of her stomach onto the floor until she's just dry heaving. Then she sits up, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and crawls off the end of the bed. She's still wearing the same clothes as she was wearing yesterday and her shoes are still on her feet, so all she has to find is her jacket on her way out of the house. The floor in the spacious living room is littered with empty cups and crushed food and here and there an unconscious body. She finds her favorite leather jacket being used as a pillow and covered with something sticky that smells too sweet, but she's having trouble caring over the pounding in her head.

She gets to the car and turns the key in the ignition. It's nearly noon and the streets are teeming with people. She finds her way back to their building and gets up to the apartment. For the three mile drive between Luke's house on the outskirts of the city and her apartment building, she makes her way through one thought – where's Scarlett? By the time she's turning the key in the door to their apartment, she's decided she's too hungover to care.

When the door swings open, she's greeted by the sight of her 14-year-old brother on the couch wrapped in about seven blankets and watching some crime show with a garbage can beside his head. He looks up at her when she comes in. His face is flushed with fever, and she wants to take care of him, but she doesn't know if she's quite sober enough to be near him yet.

“Where were you last night?” he asks, his voice hoarse, and he coughs a few times.

“I stayed at Scarlett's.”

Jason picks himself up off of the couch and shuffles over to her, two of his many blankets wrapped around his shoulders and clutched tight in his fist. Usually her brother is a tough freshman boy who never needs his sister anymore, but right now he's a lost little boy who wants a hug. She gives it to him. She can feel his fever through her shirt as he rests his head on her shoulder.

“You're lying,” he mumbles into her skin.

“Huh?”

“You smell like alcohol and cigarettes.” He picks his head up, and he looks so incredibly disappointed in her that she wants to break down and beg forgiveness. “You were at a party, weren't you?”

She gapes like a fish out of water for a moment, then exhales hard. “I thought you'd be at Leo's last night, I didn't think there'd be any harm in it…”

“That's why you couldn't pick me up last night.” His face has gone from disappointed to angry. “And I guess your car is fine, isn't it? Or did you get a ride home from your latest fuck?”

She winces at her little brother’s harsh language; he doesn’t usually speak like this. “I didn't fuck anyone last night. I just went to sleep.”

“After getting wasted. I knew you sounded weird on the phone. You didn't want me to know you'd been drinking.”

“I only had punch,” she lies, “It was spiked, Jay, I didn't know.”

“Save it! Jesus Christ, Thalia. I really needed you last night, and you were off having fun.”

“I…it wasn't, really, Scar wanted to go 'cause of this guy she likes…”

“Of course there was a guy involved.”

“Not with me! With her! It wasn't my fault, Jason!”

Jason shakes his head and begins going back to the couch. “This is fucking ridiculous, Thalia. I knew you did dumb shit, but I didn't know it was this bad.”

“It was just one time…”

“Stop lying!” he yells, and she winces as the sound sends a nail through her skull. “I know it's not the only time, I bet you've done this a million times before. There were drugs, too, weren't there? Are you some kind of addict or something? Like mom?”

Out of everything Jason's said so far, those two words hurt the most. The idea that Thalia could possibly be anything like their mother, who barely ever sees either of her children and usually can't even remember their birthdays, too wrapped up in her latest boy toy and getting her next fix.

“You know what, Thalia?”

She squeezes her eyes shut and prays that he'll stop right there, that he won't finish his sentence, because she knows she won't like it.

“You're just like her.”

He lies down on the couch, tosses the other few blankets on top of himself (she’s not sure how he stands them all with the heat from his fever, but she’s not thinking about that now) and turns on the crime show again.

“Jason,” she says, begging and desperate, but he just turns up the volume on the TV.

She can take a hint.

She doesn’t even take the energy to throw her coat in the corner, just drops it on the floor on her way into the one hallway that they have. Their apartment is a one-floor deal, with three bedrooms and a tiny living area. Across from two of the rooms and beside her’s is the only bathroom, and that’s where she goes.

She shuts the door hard, but not hard enough to make the walls shake, and locks it behind her. Then she rests her hands on either side of the sink and looks at herself in the mirror.

She hasn’t looked in a mirror in a long time. She hates them. She hates that they never lie. They’re the one thing in the world that never ever ever tells a lie, even when you want it to, and she can’t stand looking into them for fear the mirror will strip away her skin and her skeleton and take apart her brain to find all of the secrets she keeps hidden even from herself, because she just can’t deal with them. But she needs that now, needs to deal with those secrets, and so she stares her mirror-self in the eyes.

She can see everything she hates about herself – her hair that’s full of split end and hasn’t been washed in a few days and is so greasy it shines, her smudged makeup that makes her look like a hungover raccoon, and the little bit of fat still clinging to her cheeks, no matter what she does to get rid of it. But those are just the surface things, and in her eyes she can see everything else, and she doesn’t want to think about it because she’s too afraid.

It’s pathetic that she can’t just fucking face herself, and she knows that, and it makes her sick.

_You're just like her_ .

She looks down at the sink. It used to be shiny and white, but over the years it’s turned a disgusting yellow color and they haven’t gotten the money to replace it. The drain is rust colored, although it used to be silver.

The mirror hangs above the sink, and below it is the basket filled with her mother's “prescription” medicine, and Thalia is having trouble deciding which of the two is worse. She's leaning towards the mirror. The medicine will hide the truth, make her feel better, and the mirror will just strip her bare.

_You're just like her_ .

She's not, she's not, she almost screams it at the sink, she's  _not_ . She isn't like her mother. She can't be.

But she looks up at the mirror again and sees the pale clammy skin that stretches across her face with just a little too much fat underneath it, and the dark bags underneath her eyes. She looks like an anti-drug advertisement. Her eyes aren't quite sunken into her face the way her mother's are, but she can see the resemblance in the broken glass spheres. For the first time, she really thinks she looks like her mother.

She stumbles backwards and her back hits the wall. She slides down, her hand over her mouth to hold back sobs.

_You're just. Like. Her_ .

She clenches her fists in her hair and bites her lip so hard that she tastes coppery blood on her tongue.

_I won't be her, I won't I won't I won't I can't._

She lifts her head, gulping in air, and comes face-to-wood with the cabinet under the sink. She can practically see the little orange bottles through the wood. Just a few swallows and she'll be free for a few more hours.

Jason occupies a small corner of her mind as her hand reaches forward to pull the door open, but he isn't prominent enough for her to consider that he's sitting on the couch with a high fever and probably can't keep anything down, judging by the bucket that had been sitting by the couch. For once, she isn't thinking about her obligations. She's being selfish, and she hates it and she hates herself and she just wants to not remember.

Somehow she finds herself lying on the faux tiled floor of the bathroom staring up at the ceiling lights. The lights are very bright and everything's sort of fuzzy. She can't lift her hands and her head must be the size of a boulder. She doesn't like this. This isn't right. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knows that.

Her stomach begins contracting painfully, and she forces her head onto its side to take her eyes away from the bright lights.

She blinks slowly as she realizes: she took too many. She doesn't really remember putting the pills in her mouth, but she does remember looking down at the pills and now it occurs to her that there were too many in her palm.

_You're just like her_ .

She begins convulsing, as though her body is trying to get rid of the pills. It hurts, but she thinks that maybe she deserves it.

Because he's right. She's just like their mother.

She can't, though. She can't die, she has to stay. She doesn't want this to be it. What if it gets better?

She's terrified. What did she do? She can't die, she can't, she has to be here for Jason, for Scarlett.

She  _wants_ to be here. For herself.

But it's so quiet. There's no people yelling, her thoughts are still, and for the first time in as long as she can remember, it's completely blissfully quiet.

Her eyes slide shut.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry this update took so long, although I guess it took longer on FF.net than it did here. Hopefully the next one will be quicker.


	3. Nico

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Olivia, Rose and Miranda are original characters.

" _Race you to the top!"_ ****

_Bianca grabbed onto a low branch and hoisted herself up into the tree. Nico stood below and jumped, desperately trying to reach a branch._

_"Bianca," their mother scolded, "don't leave your brother behind."_

_Bianca giggled from ten feet off the ground, perched on a branch and swinging her legs. "Not my fault. He' too little!"_

_"So he shouldn't be climbing , and you shouldn't be asking him to."_

_Four-year-old Nico began to whimper, reaching towards the tree, and their mother Maria came_

_over and scooped him up to settle him on her hip. "Hush, bambino," she soothed._

_"Wanna c'imb!" Nico wailed, pointing at Bianca in the tree._

_Maria kissed his head. "Not now, caro." She looked up at Bianca. "It's time to go inside, Bianca. Come play with your brother."_

_Bianca grumbled, but swung down and started towards the house. "Can we play dress up?"_

_"Only if your brother wants to."_

_"Wanna play dress up?"_

_Nico clapped his hands and began wiggling in Maria's grip. "Down, mamma!"_

_Maria laughed and set the little boy down. "You're the princess this time," Bianca said as they ran (and toddled) towards the playroom._

_From down the hall she heard, "Don't wanna princess, Bibi!", and the sound of Bianca laughing._

* * *

He likes watching them play.

They're very small, and so fragile, and sometimes he wonders if maybe they're made of glass. They're so see-through; he can see their hearts in their chests and their lungs beneath pristine ribs, their blood flowing through their veins and their brains encased in their skulls. Their brains light up when they're playing, and the lights flicker and dance. He doesn't know why no one else seems to see it – it's never been mentioned in his books or by anyone at the dinner tables. Maybe it's just something that happens, like walking. No one talks about walking as long as their legs are working normally.

But when the lights stop flickering, when the blood stops flowing and the heart stops pulsing, when the lungs stop their in-and-out-and-in-and-out, no one mentions it then, either. Maybe it's just one of those things that no one ever talks about.

He hates those things. They're so confusing. He isn't always sure that they really happened, and that they're not just something in his head. He has enough trouble distinguishing anyhow.

The glass children are playing on the floor. He can't touch them. He'll break them, he knows it. One touch, and they'll shatter. Their lights will go out, and their pieces will melt into the floor, and there will be nothing left. Nothing for their families to cry over.

Who will cry over him?

"Ni'o."

He blinks and sees a little glass girl standing in front of him. Her painted lips are twisted into a smile, and he thinks it's aimed at him. He doesn't know why.

A glass hand is held out to him, a small horse in its palm. The horse is frozen midgallop. It's fallen on its side, and it doesn't try to get up.

"Pway!"

For a moment he doesn't know where the sound is coming from, until he realizes that the little glass girl is still there, connected to the glass arm and hand holding the fallen horse, and the sound has come from her. He face is lit up, shining in a way that only the glass children do. He wishes he could shine like that. Maybe she'd come back. Maybe she went away looking for someone who shines.

They say that the little glass children are broken. They say that everyone here is broken, that their gears don't work quite right. For him, it's his head – the gears in his head don't work. They're rusty. That's what everyone says. He doesn't understand. But maybe that's because his gears don't work.

He wonders which gears in this little glass girl are broken. He knows it's not her head. There are no children with broken head gears here. He doesn't think so, at least. Maybe they're just not allowed into his world. They have to be kept away from the walls that keep him in. It's not safe for little glass children with broken head gears, not with him. It's not safe for any little glass children around him. He doesn't know why they don't see that.

The little glass girl with the arm and the hand and the horse is still shining at him, and the horse is still staring at him with the one eye that's facing up. His knees are pressed to his chest, and he pulls them tighter, digging his fingernails in. He doesn't like it, it hurts, but if he doesn't hurt then he'll shatter her, and he can't do that. The glass girl has to leave. They all have to leave.

They're all coming closer. The toys in their hands have turned into weapons that they're trying to give him. They want to be hurt, they want to be touched, they want to be shattered. The glass has turned to ice, and the clockwork inside the children is freezing. They're not moving anymore, they're just standing still. Their clockwork is broken, and they'll stand there without moving for the rest of time.

The world is shaking, and the children have come back, and he doesn't know how. Someone is breathing hard and loud in his ears, so he covers them to push away whoever it is. The little glass girl's shine has turned blue and the horse is gone, swallowed up by a clockwork hand. She doesn't look happy anymore, and he wants to help but there is still breath in his ears and he can't move his hands away.

A pressure appears on his shoulder and the world shakes harder for half a second. It goes black, and he's curled into himself. The breathing has been joined with a roaring in his ears. There's a diamond fist wrapping itself around his insides, shining and beautiful so that he welcomes it until it's squeezing the life from him and by then it's too late.

A voice calls for him, breaks through the breathing and the roaring and the black. It's his name, over and over again, but the voice is cold in a calming way, a welcome reprieve from the dark heat surrounding him. He's spinning in black, falling up and down and sideways all at the same time, and can't find the tears to cry even though he knows it would help. He reaches and reaches for the voice, until the breathing and the roaring have subsided and the light is lifting to show the children of glass and clockwork and an attendant is standing beside him with a hand on him.

The room is quiet, the clockwork gone silent, and for a moment he thinks they've turn to ice again, but then he realizes they're just looking at him, and he's not sure which is worse. Their innocent, blank little glass eyes are somehow more terrible than the hot darkness.

"Nico, do you want to go to your room?" the attendant asks.

"It's okay," he says, and his voice sounds hoarse.

"Come on, let's go take a break. Alright?" The attendant – her eyes are ice and her hair is fire and he doesn't know how she stands it – moves her hand from his shoulder to his back and gently lifts so that he stands.

"I can stay," he insists, but she ignores him and continues to help him up. When he's standing she guides him through the white and blue halls to his room.

She smiles. "Sit and read, okay? You like reading, right?"

She doesn't have to remind him, and it annoys him that she does it anyway. He knows what he likes. He likes books. He knows that. Of course he does.

Right?

* * *

His name is Malcolm. He sits in the room, sometimes on the bed and sometimes in a chair beside the bed. They should work at the desk, but the desk is always covered with books. They form a paper mountain, sometimes so high that they cover the window, and he likes them best that way because the paper mountain protects his small, too-white kingdom from invaders.

Malcolm is not an invader. He knocks on the door before coming in, and actually waits for the door to be opened before he enters the kingdom.

It's silly that the only thing protecting the kingdom is a mountain of books and a door, but it is all there is and the kingdom must be protected somehow.

Malcolm brings more books, but they aren't the kind that get added to the paper mountain by the window. These books do not have dragons and knights hiding in their pages, no other worlds ready to spring out and take over the kingdom for even just a few short hours. Malcolm's books are full of numbers and anatomy and sometimes grammar. Nico dislikes Malcolm's books, just as he always disliked the books that teachers gave him – he thinks that they might be the same books.

But Malcolm takes the time to explain each bit of the books and sometimes the too-white walls disappear, all the attendants and the glass children fly away on the wings of imagination, and it is only Nico and Malcolm left, with the books.

Nico likes these times the best.

"Do you understand?" is Malcolm's favorite question. He asks it at least three times on every visit. He's just asked it now.

"Yes." He doesn't lift his eyes from the page. For now, he understands – the numbers have formed rows, little soldiers prepared to march into the battle of an equation. But his hold on them is loose, they are an unruly army, and if he looks up they will disperse.

"I'm glad you're working so hard, Nico, but you don't need to burn a hole in that paper."

He blinks, and switches his focus from staring at his number-soldiers to examining the paper. He doesn't see any flames. Nor does he see any holes. What is Malcolm talking about? He looks up to see Malcolm smiling at him.

"Do you want to take a break?" Malcolm asks.

Nico looks back down at the paper. The number-soldiers have scattered. He's never been a good commander.

"I'm going to see my aunt tomorrow," Malcolm says.

"Oh."

"She has a little girl, Olivia. That's why we're going to visit. It's Olivia's birthday. She's turning two."

Nico looks up at Malcolm again. Malcolm is still smiling. Where did the baby come from?

"Do you have any cousins?"

"Percy."

"Percy, right? Rose told me about him. She said he sometimes comes to visit you."

 _Sometimes_  is a funny way to put it. Percy drops by couple months or so. Nico supposes that counts as  _sometimes_ , but it's a very infrequent  _sometimes_.

He doesn't think Percy likes him much anymore.

"Maybe he'll come again soon."

"Maybe." He doubts it.

The last time Percy came, he brought chocolate. Nico ate the chocolate so that Percy would feel better about bringing it – to refuse it would be rude. Percy had told him all about the swimming championship that he'd won. Nico had tried to care. Really he had. It's just – he wasn't really interested. He'd thrown out the rest of the chocolate after Percy left.

He doesn't want to talk about Percy, so he stands up and goes into the corner. He slides down to sit and stares at the wall.

"We don't have to talk about that if you don't want to." Malcolm comes and sits beside Nico.

Nico doesn't look at him.

Malcolm begins to talk again. Nico lets his head slide to rest against the wall, his knees just brushing the adjoining one.

Malcolm has a nice voice.

* * *

_Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap._

The cap of the pen hits the notepad below it and bounces up rapidly. It'll go flying off if she does it any harder, but she never does, and the cap always stays on the pen.

_Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap._

He really wishes she would stop doing that. But he's given up asking. He asks every time, and she never listens.

He's feeling better today. Things are clearer. He thinks they've cleaned his windshield.

_Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap._

"Miranda says you've been having trouble sleeping."

Miranda must be the new one, the one who comes into his room every hour or so to check on him while he's trying to sleep.

"I wouldn't be having trouble if she'd stop coming in and waking me up."

"Is the nightlight helping?"

He tries not to snort, he really does, but the temptation is so strong. No, the nightlight isn't helping. One tiny light for an entire room full of blackness doesn't do much, thanks. The cleanest windshield in the world means nothing without proper light.

"I know this is hard for you, Nico. And I want to help you."

"Keep trying."

"I believe in you, Nico."

"Nice to know someone does."

"I'd like to be able to send you home."

He looks up from the terribly ugly print of the chair he's sitting on. She smiles at him.

"Yeah," she says nodding. "I think it would really help for you to go home. Stay with your father. I think he'd like that, too. And I'm the one that makes the final call on that, but it doesn't just fall to me. I know you're trying, Nico, but I need you to show just a little bit of improvement. If you do, we can start talking about sending you home."

He wants that, God does he want it. But he doesn't know…

She haunts him now, here, where she never had a reason to be. How would he handle going home, seeing her around every corner? How could he walk past her room every day?

A balloon begins to swell in his chest, and his windshield begins to fog. He grits his teeth, breathes in through his nose, and forces the balloon down, forces his windshield to clear. He won't let it happen here.

"I'm going to prescribe you something to help you sleep, okay?"

He hates sleeping pills with a burning passion. They make him dazed and stupid, and the monsters in his head are harder to fight back. "No, it's okay, I don't need pills."

But she doesn't listen. They never do.

**Author's Note:**

> Did anyone notice the Doctor Who reference?


End file.
